Drinking more coffee may help prevent alcohol-related cirrhosis

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Photos:Coffee's health history

Coffee's health history: Where do we stand now? – It's thumbs up today, but the news on coffee has not always been positive. Take a look at the arguments for and against coffee through the centuries.

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Photos:Coffee's health history

1500s headline: Coffee makes you frisky – Legend has it that coffee was discovered by Kaldi, an Ethiopian goatherd, after he caught his suddenly frisky goats eating glossy green leaves and red berries and then tried it for himself.

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Photos:Coffee's health history

1500s headline: Coffee leads to illegal sex – But it was the Arabs that started coffeehouses, and that's where coffee got its first black mark. Patrons of coffeehouses were said to be more likely to gamble and engage in "criminally unorthodox sexual situations," according to author Ralph Hattox.

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Photos:Coffee's health history

1600s headline: Coffee cures alcoholism – As the popularity of coffee grew and spread, the medical community began to extol its benefits. It was especially popular in England as a cure for alcoholism, one of the biggest medical problems of the time.

1700s headline: Coffee helps you work longer – By 1730, tea had replaced coffee in London as the daily drink of choice. That preference continued in the colonies until 1773, when the famous Boston Tea Party made it unpatriotic to drink tea. Coffee houses popped up everywhere, and the marvelous stimulant qualities of the brew were said to contribute to the ability of the colonists to work longer hours.

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Photos:Coffee's health history

1800s headline: Coffee shortage – In the mid-1800s America was at war with itself and one side effect is that coffee supplies ran short. Enter toasted grain-based beverage substitutes such as Kellogg's "Caramel Coffee" and C.W. Post's "Postum" (still manufactured), who advertised with anti-coffee tirades to boost sales.

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Photos:Coffee's health history

1800s headline: Coffee will make you go blind – Postum's ads against coffee were especially negative, claiming coffee was as bad as morphine, cocaine, nicotine or strychnine and could cause blindness.

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Photos:Coffee's health history

1916 headline: Coffee stunts your growth – Medical concerns and negative public beliefs about the benefits of coffee rose in the early 1900's. Good Housekeeping magazine wrote about how coffee stunts growth.

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Photos:Coffee's health history

1927 headline: Coffee will give you bad grades, kids – In a 1927 Science Magazine, 80,000 elementary and junior high kids were asked about their coffee drinking habits. Researchers found the "startling" fact that most of them drank more than a cup of coffee a day, which was then compared to scholarship with mostly negative results.

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Photos:Coffee's health history

1970's headline: Coffee is as serious as a heart attack – In 1978, the same year that Baseball Hall of Fame's Joe DiMaggio began selling Mr. Coffee on TV, a New England Journal of Medicine study found a short-term rise in blood pressure after three cups of coffee.

And an earlier 1973 study found drinking one to five cups of coffee a day increased risk of heart attacks by 60% while drinking six or more cups a day doubled that risk to 120%.

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Photos:Coffee's health history

2000 era headline: Time for meta-analysis – Now begins the era of the meta-analysis where researchers look at hundreds of studies and apply scientific principles to find those which do the best job of randomizing and controlling for compounding factors, such as smoking. . The results for coffee? Mostly good.

But first, a couple of negatives: a 2001 study found a 20% increase in the risk of urinary tract cancer risk for coffee drinkers, but not tea drinkers. That finding was repeated in a 2015 meta-analysis. So if this is a risk factor in your family history, you might want to switch to tea.

And a 2010 meta-analysis found a correlation between coffee consumption and lung disease, but the study found it impossible to completely eliminate the confounding effects of smoking.

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Photos:Coffee's health history

2007-2013 headlines: Coffee reduces risk of stroke and some cancers – A meta-analysis of 11 studies on the link between stroke risk and coffee consumption between 1966 and 2011, with nearly a half a million participants, found no negative connection. And a 2012 meta-analysis of studies between 2001 and 2011 found four or more cups a day had a preventative effect on your risk for stroke.

As for prostate cancer, this 2011 study followed nearly 59,000 men from 1986 to 2006 and found drinking coffee to be highly associated with lower risk for the lethal form of the disease.

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Photos:Coffee's health history

A similar analysis of studies on heart failure found four cups a day provided the lowest risk for heart failure, and you had to drink a whopping 10 cups a day to get a bad association.

And overall heart disease? A meta-analysis of 36 studies with more than 1.2 million participants found moderate coffee drinking seemed to be associated with a low risk for heart disease; plus, there wasn't a higher risk among those who drank more than five cups a day.

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Photos:Coffee's health history

2015 headline: Coffee is practically a health food – How about coffee's effects on your overall risk of death? One 2013 analysis of 20 studies, and another which included 17 studies, both of which included more than a million people, found drinking coffee reduced your total mortality risk slightly.

And as a sign of the times, in 2015 the U.S. Department of Agriculture now agrees that "coffee can be incorporated into a healthy lifestyle," especially if you stay within three and five cups a day (a maximum of 400mg of caffeine), and avoid fattening cream and sugar. You can read their analysis of the latest data on everything from diabetes to chronic disease here.

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Story highlights

In eight out of nine studies examined, researchers found coffee consumption may have helped prevent cirrhosis

Alcoholism is the second most common cause of cirrhosis In the U.S.

(CNN)Make that black coffee order a double.

Upping your coffee intake may help reduce your chances of developing alcohol-related cirrhosis, according to a review done by the journal Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics of multiple existing studies.

Drinking just two more cups of coffee every day may lower the risk of developing the liver condition by 44%, according to researchers who analyzed nine studies that examined the relationship between coffee consumption and the risk of cirrhosis.

More than 430,000 participants were a part of the nine studies. The duration of these studies varied, but the longest one lasted about 20 years. In eight of the nine studies examined, researchers found increasing coffee consumption by two cups per day was "associated with a statistically significant reduction in the risk of cirrhosis." The review, published January 25, is the first meta-analysis to show the potential protective properties of coffee.

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Dr. Oliver Kennedy, who conducted the research as part of a team at Southampton University in the United Kingdom, told CNN the team combined the data of these existing studies to calculate a more precise relationship between coffee and the risk of cirrhosis.

Photos:How much sugar is in that drink?

In the following slides, we compare the amount of sugar found in some of America's top-selling beverages -- according to Beverage Industry magazine's 2013 State of the Industry Report -- to the sugar found in common sugary snacks.

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Photos:How much sugar is in that drink?

Soda: Coca-Cola – A 20-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola Classic contains 65 grams of sugar, which is the same amount of sugar found in five Little Debbie Swiss Rolls.

Juice: Minute Maid 100% Apple Juice – This 15.2-ounce bottle contains 49 grams of sugar, which is about the amount of sugar in 10 Oreos. Sugar occurs naturally in fruit, but natural sugar isn't any different in chemical structure from what most people refer to as added sugar. The body processes both the same way. One benefit of eating whole fruit is the fiber that helps slow absorption; that fiber is generally lost in the juice-making process.

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Photos:How much sugar is in that drink?

Juice: SunnyD Original – A 16-ounce bottle of SunnyD Original contains 28 grams of sugar. Each these six Oreos contains about 4.6 grams of sugar.

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Photos:How much sugar is in that drink?

Tea: Arizona Green Tea with Ginseng & Honey – A 23-ounce can of Arizona Green Tea contains51 grams of sugar, which is about the same as can be found in 20 Hershey's Kisses. The World Health Organization recently proposed new guidelines that recommend consuming less than 5% of our total daily calories from added sugars. For an adult at a normal body mass index, or BMI, 5% would be around 25 grams of sugar -- or six teaspoons.

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Photos:How much sugar is in that drink?

Tea: Lipton Lemon Iced Tea – There are 32 grams of sugar in this 20-ounce bottle of iced tea. Each of these 12 Hershey's Kisses contains approximately 2.5 grams of sugar.

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Photos:How much sugar is in that drink?

Energy drink: Red Bull – Three-quarters of a cup of generic-brand frosted flakes contains about 11 grams of sugar. This 16-ounce can of Red Bull has 52 grams of sugar. Red Bull and many of the companies in this gallery offer lower or no-sugar versions of their drinks. "Nearly half -- 45% -- of all non-alcoholic beverages contain 0% (sugar)," said Christopher Gindlesperger, spokesman for the American Beverage Association.

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Photos:How much sugar is in that drink?

Energy drink: Monster Energy – This 16-ounce can of Monster Energy has 54 grams of sugar. It contains the same amount of sugar as about 3.5 cups of frosted flakes.

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Photos:How much sugar is in that drink?

Milk: Generic skim milk – An 8-ounce glass of skim milk has about 11 grams of sugar. A single Starburst candy has 2.7 grams.

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Photos:How much sugar is in that drink?

Milk: Silk Vanilla Soymilk – A glass of vanilla soymilk has about 8 grams of sugar, which is equal to the amount found in three Starbursts.

They found that the risk of cirrhosis was lower at higher levels of coffee consumption. "For example, compared to no coffee, 1 cup per day was associated with a 22% lower risk of cirrhosis and 4 cups per day was associated with a 65% lower risk. However, there may be an upper limit beyond which there is no further benefit," Kennedy said.

But while coffee may reduce the risk of cirrhosis, it will not fully counteract the harmful effects of excess alcohol consumption, Kennedy added.

Cirrhosis is a condition that deteriorates the liver, replacing healthy tissue with scar tissue that blocks blood flow. Common causes for the liver disorder are chronic hepatitis infections, excessive alcohol consumption, immune diseases, obesity and diabetes. And the damaging condition can be fatal, according to the National Institution of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

"The problem is that most professionals in the liver community find this hard to accept," Tobias told CNN. "The physiological and biochemical basis has not been established and some experimental evidence is needed. Right now, many of these studies are based on historical information provided by patients."

Tobias said the possibility of patient subjectivity and statistical errors makes him leery of such studies claiming to have a simple fix for cirrhosis.

It should also be noted that some of the studies that were reviewed did not account for other risk factors for cirrhosis like obesity and diabetes, Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics says in its report.

Photos:Five ways to eat healthier

Mushrooms have been found to be high in potassium, B vitamins and antioxidants such as ergothioneine, says Joy Dubost, spokeswoman for the US Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

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Photos:Five ways to eat healthier

Blueberries have been linked to a host of health benefits, including lowering blood pressure. What's more, researchers at Tufts University say, blueberries improve your memory.

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Photos:Five ways to eat healthier

If you don't like to eat fish, nuts are a good alternative source of omega-3, says Dubost.

Whole grain is not just a source of fiber; it contains lignin, which is broken down in the body to produce polyphenols, which may help lower blood pressure, according to Eric Rimm, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

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The findings mean more research is needed, Kennedy said. "We now need to conduct proper clinical trials, similar to those necessary for authorization of a new pharmaceutical product, so that doctors and health policy makers can make specific recommendations, he said.

It's important to also keep in mind that the amount of alcohol-related liver damage varies from person to person, Tobias explained. For example, women can't metabolize alcohol as quickly as men. Maintaining healthy eating and drinking habits is a good way to prevent some cases of cirrhosis, according to Tobias.